Since all these rules and superstitions are outdated, what's wrong with me indulging in some me

Lu Changsheng stood on the inside of the car door, his gaze calmly sweeping across the carriage.

In that instant, all the "passengers" in the carriage simultaneously and stiffly avoided his gaze.

Even the ghostly driver in the driver's seat stiffened his back, his bluish-gray nape twitching slightly, but he dared not turn around.

Cheng Caijun was still slumped on the cold floor, clutching his throbbing head, staring blankly at Lu Changsheng. The relief of surviving the ordeal and the excitement of seeing a powerful backer made his nose sting with tears.

Lu Changsheng withdrew his gaze and landed on the rusty, cracked coin box at the front of the carriage.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out another black copper coin, exactly the same as the one he had given Cheng Caijun before.

Then, under the "gaze" of the ghosts in the car, he held the copper coin between his thumb and forefinger and stopped above the coin box opening.

He seemed to suddenly remember something interesting, and the corners of his mouth slowly curved upwards into a very faint smile.

"Oh, right."

Lu Changsheng spoke, his voice low and casual, almost like a casual chat.

"You closed the door quite quickly just now. Refusing passengers isn't the mark of a good driver."

He paused, and his fingers holding the copper coin trembled slightly.

"I have a bad memory, but my temper—is even worse."

"So, the fare for this trip..." Lu Changsheng raised an eyebrow, putting away the copper coin in his hand, "...I don't really want to pay."

"Of course, it's not appropriate to get on the bus empty-handed either."

He then changed the subject, "How about this?"

Lu Changsheng tilted his head slightly, his gaze sweeping over the trembling ghost passengers who wished they could hide in the gaps between their seats, and his smile grew even warmer.

"Everyone... take your heads off."

"Just put it on the ground, arrange it neatly, consider it a way to beautify this lousy bus."

"..."

Dead silence.

Absolutely, even the crackling of electricity seemed frozen into a deathly silence.

The next second—

"Thump!"

The huddled student ghost closest to Lu Changsheng was the first to react.

Without making a sound, its head, which had been buried in the arms, snapped off at the neck without warning, rolled onto the floor, and only stopped at Lu Changsheng's feet.

It was as if it were a signal.

"Gulp," "Plop," "Pfft..."

One after another, eerie soft noises rang out throughout the carriage.

The old woman's head, along with her sparse gray hair, slid off her hunched body, her empty eye sockets staring at the roof of the car.

The head of the middle-aged man in the blue uniform was neatly "pulled" off after being twisted 180 degrees. He held it in his own hands and carefully and properly placed it on the floor at his feet.

Long gowns from the Republican era, doctors in white coats... those blurry silhouettes in the shadows of the back row...

One by one, heads, whether whole, incomplete, rotten, or shriveled, were "picked up" and neatly placed on the ground in front of their respective seats.

The entire carriage instantly transformed into an eerie and silent exhibition hall displaying more than a dozen human heads.

Only those headless bodies remained stiffly seated or leaning in place, trembling slightly, demonstrating that they were not without consciousness.

In the driver's seat, the driver ghost trembled like an autumn leaf. It struggled for a few seconds, then finally, its bluish-gray hands slowly rose, grasping the sides of its head beneath its hat brim, and then…

"Click."

A soft sound, like a dry branch breaking.

Its head was also "removed" and held in its own hands to its chest.

Lu Changsheng ignored the chilling scene in the carriage, and simply addressed the headless, still-holding-its-head-of-the-heads body of the driver ghost:

"Go to Ghost Cry Bay."

"Drive steadily. You'll knock my friend over again—"

His gaze swept almost imperceptibly over the neatly arranged heads on the ground.

"Don't even think about putting your heads back on."

Lu Changsheng then stepped forward and sat down in an empty, dusty seat next to Cheng Caijun. He casually kicked the child's head that had rolled to his feet to the side, and the head rolled under the seat.

Cheng Caijun snapped out of his daze, scrambling to his feet and practically collapsing onto the seat next to Lu Changsheng. His face was still deathly pale, but thankfully no one dared to stare at him.

The carriage remained deathly silent. The driver, Ghost, held his head in one hand and shifted gears with the other.

The bus restarted, and this time, it drove exceptionally smoothly, even more smoothly than a limousine, without the slightest unnecessary bump.

Cheng Caijun huddled next to Lu Changsheng, his wildly beating heart finally calming down a little. He stole a glance at Lu Changsheng's calm profile, and finally couldn't hold back any longer. In an almost breathless voice, he leaned close to Lu Changsheng's ear and asked in a trembling voice:

"Brother Lu, why are they...why are they so afraid of you? Did you used to come here often?"

Lu Changsheng gazed at the monotonous gray fog and dilapidated scenery rushing past the window. Upon hearing this, the corners of his mouth seemed to curve slightly again, as if he were recalling some past events.

"Afraid?" His voice remained calm, carrying a hint of chill. "Maybe."

He paused for a moment before continuing in that casual tone:

"A few years ago, I took on a job that required me to pass through this area. Some clueless guy, relying on his connections, tried to keep me as a 'guest' and collect some 'toll' from me."

Cheng Caijun swallowed hard, sensing that what was about to happen might not be pleasant.

"I was young then, and my temper wasn't as good as it is now."

Lu Changsheng's tone was flat, as if he were talking about someone else's business, "You can't reason with it, so it called a bunch of friends."

"And then?" Cheng Caijun asked instinctively.

Lu Changsheng withdrew his gaze from the window and glanced at Cheng Caijun. In the dim light, Cheng Caijun's deep black eyes were calm to the point of being unsettling.

"And then?" he repeated, his tone still indifferent, "That's all."

"I slaughtered my way down that street, from the east end to the west end."

"It's much quieter now."

"..."

Cheng Caijun opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single word. A ghost that slaughtered its way through an entire street? In the ghost realm?

He couldn't imagine what the scene was like, but just those few words refreshed his understanding of Lu Changsheng to a terrifying level once again.

This is beyond just being "powerful," it's practically... a jinx.

He dared not ask any more questions, obediently shrinking back, his gaze involuntarily sweeping over the heads on the ground once more. Now he understood why the ghost driver dared not let Lu Changsheng into the car. Lu Changsheng here was probably more than just a regular customer; he was more like a taboo.

The bus traveled along in a breathtakingly smooth ride for an unknown amount of time. The gray fog outside the window seemed to have thickened, and the light had become even dimmer, with only the two dim yellow headlights at the front of the bus barely piercing through the sticky darkness ahead.

Finally, the car began to slow down.